Become your own boss, Dunne offers Shropshire's public sector workers

New plans for employee-owned co-operatives to help improve local services.Public sector workers across Shropshire could become their own boss and deliver better services under new Conservative plans, backed by local MP, Philip Dunne, today. Under bold proposals, public sector workers would have a powerful new right to form employee-owned co-operatives to take over the services they deliver. This will empower thousands of public sector workers across Shropshire.

The new right to form employee-owned co-operatives will apply throughout the vast majority of the public sector - including JobCentre Plus offices, community nursing teams and primary schools. Employee-owned co-operatives will continue to be funded by the state so long as they meet national standards, but will be freed from centralised bureaucracy and political micromanagement. They will be voluntary sector, not-for-profit organisations; any financial surpluses would be reinvested into the service and the staff who work there, rather than distributed to external shareholders.

Mr Dunne said:

"Public sector workers should have the chance to become their own boss. Employee-owned co-operatives can help cut waste and deliver better services for everyone across. This could be the biggest shift of power from government to people since the right to buy your council house in the 1980s.

"We have a growing experience of social enterprise here in Shropshire. These plans show how Conservatives will build on this success to help give power to those public sector workers fed up with Gordon Brown's top-down control of their working lives."